Chuck star says that the show will be easy to pick up in the middle. According to an interview on TV with MeeVee

You’re going to have a procedural show in there where you can tune in and have a mission of the week…and every sixth episode is going to be a mythology show,” Levi said.

He rightly goes on to say that while he loves Lost, it’s a show that’s almost impossible to pick up in the middle of. So Chuck isn’t going to be like that, instead they’ll do what the early seasons of the X-Files were so good at: mixing monster-of-the-week with mythology plots.

This sounds like a good plan, but it also seems like audiences are leaning more towards shows that require people to tune in every week. Chuck is a lead-in to Heroes, and while you CAN catch up to Heroes, it is a show that is almost entirely “mythology.” In fact, the target audience for Chuck is the same as for Heroes (as the stars and creators have said often) so it’s possible a mission-of-the-week format would turn those viewers away. Science-fiction television fans are notorious for using “of-the-week” as a derogative term.

I personally like a show I can miss an episode of and not have to give up on the entire season. I forgot to watch Lost one week a few years ago, and haven’t seen an episode since because I knew I couldn’t just pick it up again and know what was going on. I missed the boat on Heroes for months until the Sci-Fi Channel had a marathon so I could catch up after forgetting to watch the first couple weeks. But you can’t deny that those shows are getting more and more popular. Which do you prefer?

This post was Authored by Elizabeth, Our Resident Authority on all things Chuck